Logica

Logica

Type	Subsidiary
Industry	IT services, IT consulting
Founded	1969
Headquarters	Reading, United Kingdom
Key people	Serge Godin (Executive Chairman) George D Schindler (President and CEO)
Services	IT, business consulting and outsourcing services
Revenue	£3,921 million (2011)[1]
Operating income	£54.5 million (2011)[1]
Profit	£27.2 million (2011)[1]
Parent	CGI Group
Website	www.cgi.com

Logica was a multinational IT and management consultancy company headquartered in Reading, United Kingdom and a wholly owned subsidiary of CGI Group.

Formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange and a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index, Logica was acquired by the Canada-based CGI Group in August 2012 for £1.7 billion in cash.^[2]

It had offices in London and a number of major cities across England, Wales and Scotland, as well as in other countries around the world.^[3]

History

20th century

Logica was founded by Len Taylor, Philip Hughes, Pat Coen,^[3] Steve Feldman^[4] and John McNeil as a systems integration business in 1969.^[5] Early projects included the control system for the natural gas grid in the UK in 1971 and the design of the SWIFT network for international money transfers in 1973.^[3]

In 1974, Logica, together with the French company SESA, set up a joint venture, Sesa-Logica, to undertake the European Informatics Network development. This project, undertaken with the support of partners throughout Europe and with the assistance of Bolt, Beranek and Newman in Cambridge, Massachusetts, brought the core datagram technology of the Arpanet, now the Internet, to Europe for the first time, and established a network linking research centres in a number of European Countries, including CERN, the French research centre INRIA and the UK’s National Physical Laboratory.^[6]

In 1975, Logica developed the first electronic typing pool – Unicom – for Unilever.^[7] This development allowed the complete functions of a typing pool to be automated into a single system supporting about 50 workstations. With the support of the UK’s National Enterprise Board the company established a new subsidiary to exploit this technology, Logica VTS.^[7] A range of stand alone word processors, the VTS 100 and the VTS 2200, were developed and were manufactured at a purpose built factory in Swindon. These machines were sold internationally by BT and by International Computers Ltd and were amongst the first word processors to achieve mass sales. However the advent of the Personal Computer and software such as Microsoft Word led to the decline of this business and its ultimate closure.^[8]

At this time Logica set up operating subsidiaries in the Netherlands, Australia, Sweden, the United States and elsewhere as well as joint ventures in Hong Kong with Jardine Matheson, in Italy with Finsiel and in the UK with British Airways. The Company floated on the London Stock Exchange on 26 October 1983.^[3]

In 1984 the Company developed the automated clearing system for the UK banks (CHAPS)^[9] as well as the customer service system for British Telecom.^[9]

The Company pioneered the automated ticketing system for London Underground in 1987^[9] and the system which randomly generates premium bond numbers (ERNIE) in 1988.^[9]

During the late 1980s and early 1990s the Company was led by David Mann.^[10]

Dr Martin Read was recruited from GEC Marconi and appointed CEO in August 1993.^[3] Most of the executive directors left the company during the two years following his appointment - David Mann, Colin Rowland, Andrew Karney, Ian Macleod and Cliff Preddy.^[11] In 2001 the Company secured an outsourcing contract to create and operate a new case management system for the Crown Prosecution Service.^[12] At this time the level of Dr Read's remuneration received attention when it was revealed that he enjoyed a £28 million pay packet.^[13][14]

21st century

The merger of Logica (60%) with CMG (40%), on 30 December 2002, represented the union of an established technology firm (Logica) with an established consulting firm (CMG).^[15] In December 2003 LogicaCMG’s software controlled the Beagle 2 probe after separation from the Mars Express orbiter.^[16]

In 2005 LogicaCMG purchased 60% of the Portuguese company Edinfor,^[9] and in March 2008 purchased the remaining 40%. In 2006, LogicaCMG purchased the French company Unilog and the Swedish company WM-data.^[9]

The Company suffered some embarrassment in 2006 when laptops containing police payroll data were stolen from LogicaCMG^[17] and an outsourcing contract with Transport for London for IT services was terminated early after disputes over payments and service level agreements.^[18]

On 20 February 2007 LogicaCMG Telecom Products was sold for £265m (US $525m) to private investors Atlantic Bridge Ventures and Access Industries and became known as Acision.^[19]

Following a profit warning in 2007,^[20] Andy Green was recruited as the new CEO and took office from 1 January 2008.^[21] On 27 February 2008, the Company changed its name back to Logica.^[9] In April 2008 Green announced a major restructuring programme for the company, leading to 1,300 job losses.^[22] Also in May 2008 the Company announced that it would offshore more of its activities including SAP support and HR and payroll administration to Makati City in the Philippines^[23] and has seen a subsequent increase in its outsourced HR and payroll services business to more than 850 customer organisations.^[24]

In December 2011 Logica announced it would axe 1,300 jobs or around 3 percent of the workforce spread across Benelux, the United Kingdom and Sweden and save Logica 50 to 60 million pounds sterling a year from the second half of 2012.^[25]

On 31 May 2012 Canada's CGI Group agreed to buy Logica in a £1.7bn cash deal.^[2] The acquisition was completed on 20 August 2012.^[26]

Operations

Logica was a management consultancy, outsourcing and IT services and solutions company.^[27] Its activities included:

• Supporting the missions of over 150 orbiting satellites.^[28]
• Processing more than $100 billion of salaries globally each year.^[29]
• Supporting 300 telecoms operators in 130 countries.^[30]

References

External links

• Official website